On the Bears

Chicago Bears' Jay Cutler needs to complain less and focus more

He needs to realize he's not playing the officiating crew

In addition to interceptions, Jay Cutler may lead the league in complaints to officials, as well as funny faces made.

Neither, however, is an official NFL statistic the Elias Sports Bureau recognizes.

Of course, these are responses to frustration about Cutler's erratic play and less-than-supportive supporting cast, which are the real issues. But for Cutler to be the kind of quarterback Tom Brady is, he will need to show less emotion and more focus on the field.

I am no Bill Belichick, but any youth coach worth his salt would know if a star player yelled at officials the way Cutler did Sunday, he should be brought to the sidelines. He then should feel an arm around his shoulder and hear something like this:

"Dealing with the officials is my job, not yours. Making calls is the official's job, not yours. Your job is to make a play. You can't control what an official does. You can only control your play. That's what you need to be concerned with.

"Look, we're not going to get every call. But yelling at officials and showing them up isn't going to help us get more calls. In fact, if anything, it might work against us. We could get a penalty. The official could hold a grudge.

"I need you to be a leader, and being a leader does not mean being the biggest noisemaker. It means respecting the game. It means respecting the officials.

"Please do that. Now get back out on the field."

I asked Cutler if anyone on the Bears has said anything to him about yelling at the officials. He said coach Lovie Smith told him during the game to let him handle it. That was good to hear.

Then he asked me if I considered it a problem. And the answer is yes. If you are acting in a manner that has drawn a penalty and a fine, it's a problem. I asked former Patriot and NBC analyst Rodney Harrison what Belichick would say if Cutler were playing for him.

"He'd say, 'Shut up and play the game,'" Harrison said. "He'd come to the meeting room and say, 'Guys, let the officials do their job. Stop talking to them. Let them do their job, and you go out and do your job. That's my job and I'll talk to them if I have a problem. It's no one's fault if you throw an interception. You have to grow up, be a man about it and take the good with the bad.'"

Former Colts coach Tony Dungy, who sits across the desk from Harrison on "Football Night in America," said when he was a young quarterback, he also had a tendency to be too concerned with what officials were doing. But his father set him straight.

"It doesn't do any good," Dungy said. "The thing you have to focus on is winning and the next play. That's what you learn as you go through the league."

Dungy sees Cutler's behavior as part of the maturing process.

"When they got Jay, I think people overreacted," Dungy said. "They thought, 'We're getting Joe Montana, the final piece of the puzzle.' He is a good quarterback and I think he's going to be a very good quarterback, but I didn't see that finished product. I thought it was going to be a work in progress, and it is."

The difference between Cutler and Peyton Manning and a lot of quarterbacks who complain to officials is Manning and the others know how to get their points across and still show respect.

"I can't remember Peyton getting penalized for that," Dungy said. "That's something you learn -- how to get your points across in ways that the fans don't always see and the officials won't always react negatively to."

Chewing out officials is part of the larger issue of responding negatively when things don't go well. That's where the funny faces come in.

The best leaders inspire confidence in their teammates. They don't make them feel as if they should be scrambling to get to the nearest lifeboat.

In the early '90s, Jim Harbaugh was the quarterback of the Bears, not the coach of Stanford. And like Cutler, he often would make faces when things did not go well.

Harbaugh struck up a friendship with Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, and Krzyzewski often would advise him on various issues. One of the things he told Harbaugh is he should not be so expressive and demonstrative on the field. Harbaugh took Krzyzewski's advice to heart, and he changed the way he carried himself in games.

It was the beginning of the best phase of Harbaugh's career, and an indication that the boy had become a man.

---------

dpompei@tribune.com

What do you think?

Should Cutler shut up and play or keep letting the refs know when they've made a mistake? Vote at chicagotribune.com/ pollposition